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The six-figure salary that county supervisor candidate Steve Danon receives as chief of staff for Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, has been a frequent target of his opponents in the race.

“Danon has been one of the highest paid staffers on the entire Federal Government payroll,” said a May 24 news release from the campaign of Solana Beach Deputy Mayor Dave Roberts.

U-T Campaign Watch reviewed the claim and found that Danon’s $168,411 salary is lower than the base salary of more than 31,000 federal employees.

Because 2.1 million employees work for departments or other executive branch agencies, that means about 1.5 percent of federal employees make more than Danon, according to the most recent data available from U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Roberts and another candidate, Del Mar Mayor Carl Hilliard, also have claimed that Danon makes more money than the chief of staff to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner.

Danon did make more in 2011 than the $163,196 earned by the chief of staff of Boehner’s congressional office.

But Congress has a separate office for the leadership position of Speaker of the House. That office has a chief of staff, two deputy chiefs of staff and a general counsel who all made more than Danon in 2011, according to House Clerk disclosures obtained from the transparency website LegiStorm.

Barry Steven Jackson, chief of staff for the office of the speaker, was paid $172,500 in 2011.